


It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

by ariellesallee



Series: The Adventures of Liv Shepard (Side Stories) [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M, Mass Effect 3, Multi, Paragade (Mass Effect), Spacer (Mass Effect), Vanguard (Mass Effect), War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariellesallee/pseuds/ariellesallee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part One of “Christmas on the Normandy.” Tali is trying to decide whether to stay on the Normandy, when Shepard asks for her help decorating the ship for Christmas. Set mid ME3, just after Priority: Rannoch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a couple things for Christmas, and though I have yet to complete all four parts I thought I'd put them in the side stories anyway. Non-canon for The Adventures of Liv Shepard because Tali's going to be with Garrus and Shepard long before this, but it's cute anyway.

Two days after taking back Rannoch, Tali was on the Normandy as the ship headed back to the Citadel. She still hadn’t decided how long she would stay. On the one hand, her people were trying to resettle their homeworld, and she felt it was her duty as an Admiral to help that process. On the other hand, there _was_ a war on, and Tali’s skills were really best utilized on the battlefield, working with Shepard and her crew.

If she was being honest with herself, the real reason she wanted to stay was Shepard herself, and Garrus. They were, of course, also the real reason she was considering going back to the Flotilla or even Rannoch. She wanted to be with them both—was quite possibly in love with them both. But if the pair had seemed an untouchable unit before, absolutely perfect for each other, they seemed even more so now. How could she ever hope to be part of that? And wouldn’t they look at her oddly if she said she wanted _both?_

Having set herself up down in Engineering again, she was trying to ignore the entire problem and work on a diagnostic when the intraship comm suddenly blared to life. There was no message, but instead music that sounded like it was coming from every speaker on the ship. Piano and then string instruments, and then a smooth male voice, human maybe, singing: 

_Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose…_

Tali stared up at the ceiling in surprise. It wasn’t that the music was bad—it was just _loud._ Every speaker on the ship meant a _lot_ of sound. 

_Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, and folks dressed up like Eskimos…_

"Who the hell turned that on?!" Joker’s voice came over the comm layered atop the music, creating an unpleasant contrast. "It’s on every damn speaker, EDI, I can’t—fuck!!" 

_Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe help to make the season bright…_

Tali turned down the audio inputs on her suit, which only helped so much. She could still hear Joker yelling over the music, but at least it was muffled. She then went to go find out what was going on. If Joker had no idea, Shepard might. And Shepard appeared to be on Deck 3. 

By the time Tali got out of the elevator on the crew deck, the sound problem seemed to have been sorted. The music was not coming out of _every_ speaker anymore, just some of them. She turned the audio inputs back on and stared about, blinking, trying to decide whether things would be any less confusing to those without a facemask. 

Red and green streamers were hung from the mess hall’s ceiling. There was also greenery that Tali didn’t recognize, some of it dark shiny green and looking sort of spiky, and some of it more… fluffy, almost, with needles. None of it looked quite _real,_ though. There was a tree over in the corner opposite the cooking area, but that also didn’t look real. 

As for Shepard, she was standing on a stool, holding up one end of a not-quite-real-looking garland of greenery, which Tali now realized had holographically projected lights at intervals along its length. Garrus was holding the other end, his expression bemused but indulgent. Vega stood just outside the elevator, watching with arms folded across his chest, grinning. Liara was sitting at the mess hall table watching over a cup of tea, but otherwise the mess hall was empty. 

"There’s supposed to be different settings on this," Shepard was grumbling. "It’s supposed to blink, and instead only half the lights are on. Garrus, is there a control on your end?" 

"No. Liv, is it really that terrible if they don’t blink?" 

"Yes. I fucking paid for them to fucking blink. They’d _better fucking blink_ or I’m going to track down the guy that sold these to me and explain the meaning of Christmas in _great detail._ On his _face._ ” 

A plate over Garrus’ brow twitched. “From what you’ve told me, that wouldn’t be very much in the Christmas spirit at all, Shepard.” 

Tali stepped out of the elevator, staring at it all. She looked at Vega and Liara. “What…?” She said it softly, so as not to interrupt Shepard, who had gone back to cursing at the garland. “Why is there a tree? And lights? And…?” 

"Hey, Sparks," Vega greeted her, still grinning. "It’s Christmas time. Lola and Scars are just going through the normal decorating problems. It’s like… a ritual thing." 

Tali frowned at him. Was he joking? She could never tell with this odd human who’d dubbed her ‘Sparks.’ She looked to Liara. Maybe the other non-human would explain better. 

"It is a human holiday," Liara said quietly. "Well, some humans celebrate it, Shepard says. Not all. It is about… winter? And… a child being born?" 

"It’s the baby Jesus’ birthday," Vega put in. "Although a lot of people don’t really think of it that way anymore." 

Tali peered at the tree, trying to work this out. “So… we are having a party for… did someone have a baby? I am confused.” 

Shepard, who finally seemed to have noticed Tali, called out, “Tali! Perfect! Come here and help me with this.” 

Tali finally noticed what the human was wearing and stared openly. The redheaded woman had on her usual fatigues, but instead of her N7 hoodie over top, there was a green-and-gold sweater with some sort of animal on the front. An animal with antlers. 

"Shepard," Tali said as she came over. "Keelah, what are you… what is that?" 

"What?" Shepard blinked and looked down. "Oh, the sweater? I found this store on the Citadel a couple weeks ago, selling Christmas stuff. Do you like it?" 

Tali _did_ like it. The green contrasted nicely with Shepard’s red hair, and brought out the color of her eyes, silver-grey like a river they’d seen back on Rannoch… the quarian cleared her throat. “Yes, I… but… what is that on the front?” 

"Oh, it’s a reindeer. They, uhh. They’re an animal. On Earth. They pull sleighs." Shepard had all the confidence, in talking about this, of a spacer who’d probably never seen an actual reindeer in her life. 

"Right." Tali decided not to inquire further about the animal. "Shepard… what’s Christmas?" 

Shepard sighed. “That’s right. I explained it to Garrus last year but I didn’t really… I wasn’t in the mood for Christmas, with Cerberus and all.” She looked to the garland she still held. “It’s a holiday. My favorite holiday, really. It takes place in winter, near the shortest day of the year. It’s about… light and hope in the darkest times. I thought it’d be appropriate.” The human’s expression changed slightly, became melancholy for a moment, grey eyes staring past the garland at something only she could see. 

"Vega said something about a baby," Tali prompted, trying to distract Shepard from whatever was upsetting her. "Jesus?" She wanted Shepard to be happy. She hadn’t liked how miserable her friend had seemed with Cerberus. Now that the marine was back with the alliance she seemed happier. Tali was bound and determined to keep her that way. 

"What? Oh!" Shepard laughed. "That’s just… how to explain. Uhh… the guy that founded Christianity, the religion I follow, Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of his birth. You know, a baby born to save mankind from evil? And… itself?" 

"I don’t think quarians have those kind of stories, Liv," Garrus put in, as though he could see through the facemask to the confused expression on Tali’s face. "I know turians don’t." 

Shepard shrugged. “Look, the… here, if you’ll help me with this I’ll show you all the Christmas vids you can handle, okay? And then you’ll understand. You don’t have to believe in it. I don’t care if other people believe the same things I do. I mean, I’ve got Cortez looking through the Citadel catalogs for Hanukkah stuff for our Jewish crew since it overlaps Christmas this year. In fact, I think it starts tonight, since it’s December 17 back on Earth.” She said this thoughtfully. “I mean, I know it’s a relatively minor holiday, but who knows if we’ll all be alive come next Rosh Hashanah, yeah?” 

"Shepard," Tali broke in, holding up her hands, "you’re not making me feel very hopeful. You’re just… confusing me more." 

A sigh from the redhead. “I’m sorry. Look, I just… we got Rannoch back.” Shepard smiled. “We took down a damn Reaper. We made peace between the quarians and the geth. We might actually _win_ this thing. I felt like celebrating. And at this time of year, this is how I celebrate. With lights and trees and presents and singing.” 

Tali smiled. “I like presents and singing. And lights. And… the tree _does_ look nice.” Now that she was closer, she could see that it, too, had holographically projected lights as well as delicate-looking ornaments hanging from its branches. 

"Great!" Shepard exclaimed. "So help me with the lights, please? I can’t get them working. It’s pissing me off." 

"It’s tradition, Lola," Vega called from across the mess hall. "They’re not supposed to work right, and you’re supposed to get all tangled up in the decorations before it all comes together." 

"Shut up, Vega," Shepard called back playfully. "You watch too many old vids." 

"Who said I got that from vids? Why do you think I’m not helping? I’ll wind up hanging from the ceiling and you’ll have to use your biotics to cut me down." 

Shepard rolled her eyes while Tali giggled at the idea of humans tangled up in strings of lights and garlands. 

"Seriously, Tali, will you help me with this thing?" Shepard shook the garland. "It won’t work right. I don’t think the tree does either." 

Tali sighed and went to examine the garland, passing her omni-tool over it. “Oh, I see,” she said. “These are made to comply to Citadel energy standards, but we’ve got a differently configured power grid because of Cerberus and the Alliance retrofit and all.” 

Garrus and Liara nodded like they understood. Vega looked confused. Shepard just said in exasperation, “Yeah, okay, but can you _fix_ it?” 

"Oh, sure." Tali waved her omni-tool again, tapped at it idly. Then she got in next to Shepard, trying to ignore her heightened awareness of proximity to the human. "Sorry, just have to get in here and…" Her olfactory filters were letting in a smell that mingled something foresty with sharp spices, overlaying the normal sweetness of levo chemistry. It was pleasant and somehow fit the decor, but she pushed that awareness away and focused on the job at hand. She found the place the lights were plugged in and went about fiddling with the wires. She wound up re-doing the entire configuration, melting and re-soldering wires with her omni-tool, hooking things up differently. 

Abruptly, the holographic projections from the garlands in the room and the tree all came on at once and then started twinkling softly. Tali stepped back and examined the effect. “Pretty,” she commented. The lights stirred something in her; she could understand why humans liked them for decoration. 

Shepard sighed happily, made sure the garland was pinned up, came down off the stool, and went to put an arm around the quarian. “It’s great to have you back, Tali,” she said. “How did we ever get along without you?” 

Tali’s heart went thump-a-thump, especially as Garrus pinned up his end of the garland and smiled at her. She was glad of the facemask, to hide her expression and the flush. Why couldn’t quarians be like turians and just never blush? 

"Not sure, Liv," Garrus said, still smiling at Tali. "You’d probably have wound up breaking the lights entirely though." 

Shepard smirked at him. “Oh, you’re saying _you_ couldn’t fix it? I thought you were an ‘omni-tool expert,’ Vakarian.” 

As the pair continued to banter, as Liara giggled at the mess hall table and Vega came over to examine the ornaments on the tree, Tali stood there with Shepard’s arm around her shoulders and realized that she belonged here, even if she was an Admiral. Hadn’t she kept “vas Normandy” on her name? She’d never felt this sense of belonging on the Neema. The Normandy felt like _home._

"So wait a minute," Tali said finally, cutting into the bickering between the vanguard and the sniper. "Singing… is _Shepard_ going to sing? Does she sing better than she dances? Because if she doesn’t… keelah…” 

Shepard laughed and pulled away. “Everyone’s a critic. For your information, I sing just fine. But before we get to singing, we have to finish putting up the decorations.” 

They didn’t get much work done that day, but it didn’t really matter. By the time they were done, the Normandy was festive and the crew were laughing and happy. And Tali’Zorah vas Normandy had decided to stay. Where Shepard and Garrus were, was home. 


End file.
